Investigative Reporting Leads To Bar Charges
A State Bar investigation that was triggered by a July 2012 article in the Phoenix New Times by Paul Rubin led to ethics charges against two attorneys who represent death penalty defendants.
A hearing panel ordered that charges of billing misconduct against one of the two be dismissed for insufficient evidence.
The panel did not explain its reasoning.
The dismissal does not address the allegations against the other attorney.
The charges against the other attorney involve allegations of billing dishonesty but also allege that he violated client confidentiality in his descriptions of service in documents subject to FOIA disclosure.
The Phoenix New Times
Bills submitted to public agencies are public record, but Carr oddly chose a stream-of-consciousness approach in many invoices, even when referring to his own death-penalty-eligible clients.
A small sampling involving client Naranjo
This is the worst one, but this client in the craziest one that I have.
Looking at new video of our client from the past. He looks like a killer, not a retard.
had to listen to the confession [tape] – not good.
Jury will hate us.
From the Phoenix New Times story
Nate Carr remains the king of Maricopa County’s contract criminal-defense attorneys when it comes to collecting money, even though he hasn’t been assigned a new capital case since 2009.
As of June 21, according to a county spreadsheet, Carr had been paid $2.4 million since the start of 2006 for representing accused murderers.
That amounts to about $370,000 per year, a sum that compares favorably to the $123,000 that County Attorney Bill Montgomery earns yearly, the $100,000 that deputy county attorney Eric Basta (chief prosecutor in Naranjo) makes, and the $145,000 that Judge Roland Steinle (who presided at Naranjo’s trial) is paid.
Jim Logan of the Office of Public Defender Services makes $164,000 a year…
[Client] Naranjo was facing death row in the March 2007 stabbing death in Phoenix of his pregnant 38-year-old girlfriend, Delia Rivera. Evidence of his guilt included the victim’s three children as eyewitnesses and a confession. Carr and his defense team had to try to persuade jurors to spare their client’s life after they inevitably convicted him of murder…
The Naranjo billings reveal that the pair billed for dozens of “team meetings” with Taylor Fox — 58 in Johnson’s case and 38 in Carr’s — that [co-counsel] Fox never submitted invoices for and says he never attended.
“If I attended a team meeting, I would have wanted to get paid for it,” Fox said. “If I wasn’t there, I wasn’t there, and I wouldn’t say I was. I don’t over-bill or under-bill.”
It gets worse.
A review of more than 64 invoices submitted separately for payment by Fox and Carr for work they allegedly did complete together (these so-called “team meetings,” court hearings and one-on-one discussions) reveals this:
On average, Nate Carr billed almost three times more hours than co-counsel Fox for identical services supposedly rendered.
The big picture background
Maricopa County’s lucrative criminal-defense niche began to explode in 2005, within months after Andrew Thomas became county attorney.
Death-penalty filings increased exponentially during Thomas’ controversial reign, which ended when he resigned in 2010 to unsuccessfully run for Arizona attorney general.
By 2008, Maricopa County had become the nation’s unofficial capital-punishment capital, with about 150 death-penalty cases pending — up by two-thirds from three years earlier. It didn’t help that the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Ring v. Arizona mandated retrials for several convicted murderers (now they would be sentenced by juries, not judges).
Death-penalty cases are among the most expensive, time-consuming, and rigorous in the justice system. One reason is that most murder defendants are unable to afford lawyers, and the courts must appoint counsel to represent them — at great cost to taxpayers.
It is (unfortunately) unusual for a bar investigation to benefit from the type of investigative reporting done here.
The Death Penalty Information Center critiqued the work of Mr. Carr.
An earlier inaccurate post regarding the dismissed charges has been deleted. (Mike Frisch)